WW1Wiltshire Posted 9 May , 2013 Share Posted 9 May , 2013 Good day all, I'm the WW1 producer for BBC Wiltshire. I, along with colleagues at Somerset, Bristol and Gloucestershire, have been charged with finding stories from World War 1 in our respective counties. Each story has, necessarily, got to be focussed on a particular place in our patch. It's our job to find the human stories attached to each of these places. The best of these stories will be recorded for radio and held until the centenary next year. We're working in partnership with the IWM on this project. Speaking personally, if you know a story from WW1 which has a connection to Wiltshire, can you please get in touch with me? You can either do that through this forum, or email me direct at... wiltshire1914@bbc.co.uk Oh, and if you're reading this and wondering about counties other than those I've mentioned, it's because our west-based stations are the pilot stations for our local radio coverage of the centenary. Others will follow in due course. Many thanks Ashley Heath BBC Wiltshire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Davies Posted 9 May , 2013 Share Posted 9 May , 2013 Ashley I will be in touch. Gareth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 11 May , 2013 Share Posted 11 May , 2013 Ashley and I are to meet next week. Hopefully those of us who have good knowledge of the Great War in Somerset, Bristol and Gloucestershire have taken note of this initiative - and I imagine that BBC local radio stations elsewhere will be planning similar exercises and perhaps might welcome offers of guidance? Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 13 May , 2013 Share Posted 13 May , 2013 Prior to out meeting on Thursday, Ashley has told me that his producer is interested in tales of romance between soldiers and civilians in Wiltshire. I have a very few brief references, mostly to members of the First Canadian Contingent, but rather more stories of immorality - which I suspect might distract from the dignified and respectful commemoration of the centenary! Iff you do happen to have a good love story set in Wiltshire, I'm sure that Ashley would like to hear it. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMarsdin Posted 13 May , 2013 Share Posted 13 May , 2013 Good evening Ashley, My wife, who is Belgian, will contact you direct. Her great-grandfather met a Wiltshire girl while convalescing in the UK during WW1 and they subsequently married. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 16 May , 2013 Share Posted 16 May , 2013 Ashley spent three hours with me today, and the BBC would appear to be taking the centenary very seriously. He'd been in contact with some people I knew (of) and some I hadn't, including a couple of members of the GWF. I'll be approaching some of my contacts to get their approval for me to pass their details to him. One of these has researched Belgian refugees and conscription tribunals in great depth. He was interested in, among many other topics, conscientious objectors. (He noted a book available on-line about the travails of a New Zealander, Archibald Baxter, who was brought all the way to Salisbury Plain and given some pretty tough treatment at Sling.) He was able to provide me with a couple of leads on topics that had eluded me. And he bought copies of both my books! Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Timcartoon Posted 19 June , 2013 Share Posted 19 June , 2013 Good evening Ashley... we met when I was representing 'Wings Over Stonehenge' at the WWI Event Conference in devizes earlier this year. Richard Osgood, a DIO Colleague of mine on Salisbury Plain, also mentioned you name in passing - regarding relevant events next year. Tim Brown www.facebook.com/FlyingWiththeLarks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arboskittler Posted 19 June , 2013 Share Posted 19 June , 2013 Are there contact details for Glos? Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBooth Posted 20 June , 2013 Share Posted 20 June , 2013 Are there contact details for Glos? Andy. Richard Lawson at Radio Gloucestershire. Email richarddotlawsonatbbcdotcodotuk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattishall Posted 22 June , 2013 Share Posted 22 June , 2013 Although I have concentrated my research on WW1 POW Camps in the south east and on the eastern side of England and the Home Counties (the British Army's WW1 Eastern Command area), where Pattishall in Northamptonshire was the parent camp, I have some information on WW1 POW Camps in Gloucestershire; for example, I have some names of escapees and dates of their escape and recapture, locations and sizes of the camps and some recent photos I've taken of where the camps used to be. I am gradually obtaining further details, but this is taking time. The parent camp for all the satellite working camps in Gloucestershire was Dorchester in Dorset. Don't forget that POWs were moved between the various working camps from time to time, even between camps in different Command areas. It was usually the practice, not only in Gloucestershire but throughout Britain, for a POW to be allocated a different identity number on arrival at his "new" camp, which makes tracking a POW's movement today a bit of a headache! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew_F Posted 16 October , 2013 Share Posted 16 October , 2013 Good day all, I'm the WW1 producer for BBC Wiltshire. I, along with colleagues at Somerset, Bristol and Gloucestershire, have been charged with finding stories from World War 1 in our respective counties. Each story has, necessarily, got to be focussed on a particular place in our patch. It's our job to find the human stories attached to each of these places. The best of these stories will be recorded for radio and held until the centenary next year. We're working in partnership with the IWM on this project. Speaking personally, if you know a story from WW1 which has a connection to Wiltshire, can you please get in touch with me? You can either do that through this forum, or email me direct at... wiltshire1914@bbc.co.uk Oh, and if you're reading this and wondering about counties other than those I've mentioned, it's because our west-based stations are the pilot stations for our local radio coverage of the centenary. Others will follow in due course. Many thanks Ashley Heath BBC Wiltshire IWM are going to be supporting this by making sure all of stories covered in the broadcasts are included in Lives of the First World War (which I gather most of you are pretty clued up on, more info here if not) to ensure those are preserved for future generations and to (hopefully) draw further attention to them through the site. Linking those to records (with the assistance of yourselves) should help us to verify a lot of the facts in the stories too. Particularly interested to tune in to hear the Wiltshire stories when they go out, as I'm a Wiltshire man myself! Ashley - I don't suppose if you know if that's a standard format all the regions are using for their emails ( [REGION]1914@bbc.co.uk), or do they differ from region to region? Matthew IWM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 25 February , 2014 Share Posted 25 February , 2014 One of the first programmes: here (As one of the comments points out, an article on a VD hospital in Wiltshire is illustrated by a photograph of German soldiers in trenches. And perhaps it's a bit of journalistic spin to describe the hospital as "secret"?) Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 11 February , 2015 Share Posted 11 February , 2015 Ashley I will be in touch. Gareth And indeed Gareth was in touch. Listen to him here talking about his research into those mentioned on the Chitterne War memorial. Recently Ashley has just recorded an interview with another Forum member about RFC Stonehenge, and last week coaxed me through an interview about the wireless station near Bishops Cannings, close to Devizes - "the GCHQ of the Great War", as I melodramatically described it. We have this thread about the station, which I started 10 ( ) years ago. Last year the roof of the remaining hut (a 1920s addition, I suspect, after the station was used for maritime wireless messaging) collapsed, but plenty of concrete footings remain. My own interview - hopefully polished up professionally by Ashley - is due to be broadcast in November. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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